


Letter

by amemuasterisk



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Cliche, Cringe, F/F, Romance, Suicide, Yuri, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 11:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18207560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amemuasterisk/pseuds/amemuasterisk
Summary: Spring. Spring is the time when nature is reborn. It's a merry festival of the changing landscapes and weather, as well as the season of the dead.At least for one lady.





	1. Letter

Morning dyed the Yakumo house with brave, vivid colours. The shikigami of the house woke up early, as soon as the gentle morning sun decorated the tops of the nearby mountains. "Those who live in the mountains are the first people who get to sunbathe in the sun's gifted rays. Now I see why hermits usually choose mountains!", thought Ran. However, she had to immediately stop pondering. Today will be another busy day. Being a servant is the price she has to pay for her strength given to her by her master.

Yukari usually sleeps a lot, so Ran always has a lot of time on her hands. By the time her mistress wakes up, the sun already reaches the vertex of the sky. While the whole land is sleeping, Yukari is awake and in full power, or reverse. Anyways, the first thing Ran had to do is to make her bed and give herself a proper look. After that, she'd wake up her Chen, and together they would dust the shelves or do general cleaning. Then, an hour before her mistress wakes up, she'd rush to the kitchen and start cooking. Ran's cooking is as delicious as the heavenly peaches. Maybe Ran's cooking is the only reason Yukari even gets out of her fluffy futon--that Ran also makes after her mistress wakes up, as a part of her daily routine--.

Ran finished dressing up and walked into the corridor. The Yakumo house is old but firm enough to stop an attack by a certain greedy shrine maiden or a mad burglar witch. Combine that with Yukari's border manipulation and nobody can trespass your house anymore. Ran wanted to check her mistress first, but then, she saw something unexpected. Her mistress was awake! Her hair was brushed, her dress was ironed and floaty, and she was sitting on a couch like a mistress should be sitting.

"Good morning, mistress!", she said in a hurry. Ran had to apologize, and she calmly told Yukari her excuse: "Breakfast is not ready yet, because I didn't expect you to wake up this early. You will have to wait. I am very sorry".  
Yukari could understand that Ran was feeling remorseful about not being able to fulfil her duty as a servant. "It's okay, don't sweat it, Ran", she replied in a gentle voice.  
While rushing to the kitchen, Ran thought that this would be a great opportunity for Chen to show her pride and loyalty. But Chen was out in the garden playing with the cherry petals that fell off yesterday. She's still a child, so she was allowed to slack off like this.

Anyways, she couldn't keep her hungry mistress waiting! But when she was about to enter the kitchen, Yukari shouted a request from the living room: "Raaan! Could you please check if we have any mail?". Huh? Mail? Even in Gensokyo letters were already getting old, and this was a really spontaneous and out-of-character question for Yukari. And since Ran knew everything about her mistress, she felt suspicious. "Oh no", a thought emerged from a corner of her mind. "What if my mistress has been possessed by an evil spirit?". "No, that's impossible, she's a strong youkai after all...", she brushed off the paranoic thought. Ran had no choice but to reply back to Yukari with "Sure, my mistress!".  
Ran was squeezing through the narrow corridors that lead to the Yakumo residence's main entrance. The nine large tails of youkai foxes symbolize their pride and intelligence, but living with them is not as comfortable as everyone thinks. Finally, she made it to the entrance. She opened the door in a hurry and stepped on the doorstep. While stingily inhaling the fresh mountain air that got hotter since the early morning, she didn't realize that she stepped on an envelope. When she realized that, she thought it was too late. Ran kept her scream to herself and immediately stepped back. "Mistress will be so mad!", she thought and bumped on the door. That surely did hurt, but the panic caused by the hypothetically damaged letter muffled the pain and she stood up. In a single movement, she grasped the letter and looked at it with troubled, yellow eyes. Thank goodness, the letter wasn't even a bit crumpled! It was such a relief... and a surprise as well. "Magic", she assumed. Anything can happen in Gensokyo, and magical paper is no exclusion.

She took a look at the delivery. The envelope itself was brown and it had a pleasant texture. Ran stroked it a few times and tapped on it. It was hard enough to not get crumped under a grown woman's feet... but soft enough to make Ran want to touch it more. Then she looked at the upper right corner. There was a tag hung on it. A pink tag in the shape of a cherry blossom--looks like Miss Saigyouji and her servant have a lot of time-- that had "Saigyouji" written on it with high-quality ink. Of course, she recognised the sender right away. But, wouldn't it be easier for Miss Saigyouji to just come and deliver the letter herself? She already comes here to chat to Yukari every day. Is it something special? "Whatever", she thought. "I gave up on understanding Yuyuko a long time ago. She's an unexplainable phenomenon for me".  
The ugly, hopeless odour of the dead filled the Yakumo residence to the brim. Ran never had her nose this close to the dead. She was actually holding death in it's rawest form. Her palms started to get swollen, her lungs were about to burst, and she only wanted to hand it to her mistress as soon as possible. When she entered the living room, she saw her mistress naping. Of course, she knew it! There's no way her mistress could wake up this early! Even if Gensokyo exploded and everyone was dead, she would still sleep! And those who dare interrupt her precious sleep... Ran decided to let her mistress catch some more Z's. She didn't care about the context of this letter or its value, she just wanted to finally free her hands from this burden. She put the letter on the table and at that moment, her lungs overflowed with life again. Maybe it was a cursed letter and she was being punished for stepping on it earlier today? She pinched her nose and headed to the kitchen with fast steps.

Death sure is disgusting!

***

Dreams are where all of the rejected and traumatized ones flee to. Dreams are their only salvation. But was Yukari dreaming of being helped, or is the one in search of help was dreaming about being Yukari?

"Ah, death! Sweet death! Great and powerful! You are what defines one's life. Ah, death! Sweet death! Repent! Why was the curse put on _her?_ Even if we weren't connected by the red thread of fate, why did you deprive _her_ of such a merry thing like joy?"  
And then, darkness. Yukari was falling into an abyss of despair and unfulfilled wishes. All these years, she has been shaming herself for what happened to the girl that she once met beneath a cherry tree. "She was such a strong girl! She was cursed, yet so strong! She could hold it all together for so much longer!". But death decided to take the cursed daughter away way too early. Since then, Yukari, who lost the brave girl she loved so much, spent most of her time in the world of dreams; pondering if she was being helped, or was the helped one dreaming about being Yukari?

Her eyelids opened and her purple eyes got exposed to the light. It was warm and cosy in the living room. The rays of light that were coming from the window were what gave the room this warmness and feeling of being safe. She straightened her back and her eyes quickly detected the brown envelope on the table. "So she did find it, huh?", she whispered.  
Miss Saigyouji was the cursed child that was so desperately tearing Yukari's body apart with the pain of separation. Since Yuyuko died, every single cell of Yukari was in mourning after Yuyuko. Yuyuko, whom she nicknamed "Yuyu", was her love and remedy, the pillow that would not only just absorb her tears but purified them and poured them into solutions and affection. Yuyuko's corpse was found in the morning underneath the Saigyou Ayakashi by a servant of the Saigyouji family. Since then, Yukari became a frequent visitor to the dream world. Bulimia of sleep that had no cure. Yukari's sleep schedule was ruined.. no, completely destroyed by this trauma.

However, at the same place where Yukari and Yuyu met, Yukari stumbled upon someone...  
"You...", she trembled. "Yuyu...". That someone who Yukari didn't expect to see was in fact, Yuyuko's ghost. A girl that looked exactly like the beloved one she lost. Yukari held the madness that piled up in her as tight as she could. After a few breaths in and out, the ghost finally noticed Yukari. She was the same! The smile, the hair, the innocent eyes, the kind reply she got from her, all were the same! Yukari had to stay with her. If she lost this girl, she would never forgive herself ever again. She would become a hermit and live in the mountains to never see people again. What if she finds another girl? Or boy? Another "pillow" to use? Was this a cycle? But the dangerous thoughts were all cut when Yuyuko patted Yukari on her shoulder. "You look very sad", she told Yukari. She was so right! And all of this was because of her, but will she ever realize it? "What is wrong? Do you want to cry?" Tears were already falling down from Yukari's eyes when she asked this. "You don't have to cry", she said to Yukari; and this is where Yukari understood that everything will be fine. She will do her best to protect Yuyuko. If even a single butterfly dares to touch her, she will make that butterfly experience the worst torture that a being ever experienced.  
"You know... I don't know why, but I feel attracted to this place. I want to stay here and watch the cherry petals in spring, see the fireworks in summer, drink green tea on a warm terrace in winter and enjoy the moon in autumn. Don't you think this valley is a perfect place to die?"

Yukari slowly opened the envelope. She didn't take a second to appreciate the envelope, she only cared about the contents. When she opened, she expected there to be a note inside. But there wasn't even a sign of a note being inside. Just the letter she waited so much for. This was Saigyouji Yuyuko's suicide letter that was attributed to Yukari. And it was probably the answer to both women's questions. While Yuyuko was questioning the reason she was so attracted to the Saigyou Ayakashi; Yukari was wondering why did the one attracted to Saigyou Ayakashi leave this world in such a beautiful, yet sinful way? It could be so much better! They could still eat rice cakes together, race with the spring breeze that was trying to defeat them with the cherry petals, talk about life and death, cry together, and confess their love to each other with warming words! Yukari commanded herself to calm down and decided that no matter how traumatizing this experience will be, it's a part of the oath about protecting Yuyuko. She had to take a step forward for her.  
She clutched the paper from both sides and started to read the diffuse, faded ink:

"Yukari...

This letter may reach you 5 minutes after my death, or in a hundred years, or maybe never. However, I am writing this not to address the issue of the ticking away moments that make up a dull day.  
I am not a part of the material world anymore. I know that this will hurt you. I am not an ignorant idiot. I know that there were many people that loved me and celebrated the play of the Moon and the Sun with me. And you were one of them, Yukari. I didn't want to hurt the one I love the most. The woman that caressed me and told me that I am beautiful that day beneath the cherry tree. The woman that brought back the fire that I needed so much. The woman that made my curse a precious gift.

I am giving my life away to experience those fleeting moments and emotions with you again, Yukari.  
A curse is still a curse that hurts people. But it hurts the bearer much more. The evening my father, a priest, discovered my curse, I was scared. I knew he wanted to perform painful rituals on me. He thought I was possessed, or worse. But the man couldn't punish or possibly kill his daughter. His only daughter whom he loves so much; the only living child of the Saigyouji family. Life became so much harder than it was when I finally moved into a separate mansion. Life of a luxurious princess where you can't do anything but stay home doing tea ceremonies and writing poetry while looking at the silver-white snow. All of the servants that served me for the first 2 months died because of me. But why? I didn't wish that! They just die because... why? "I am a murderer!", I thought. "I am the one who must die!". Those thoughts never stopped, Yukari. Your words and touches were gentler than anything I ever caressed, but even now those thoughts are echoing in my head. I am suffering for something that isn't my fault. I thank you for your love, Yukari. You were my Sun and I was your winter that you had to warm up with your warmest rays to make spring come. I am doing this to protect not only my family and environment but in order to protect ourselves too. Yuyuko still exists but in a different dimension. She is doing her best right now to find you again. She might not realize the mysterious reason behind having so many déjà vus or always coming back to the same place, but that won't matter. She will one day realize her beautiful past and reunite with you again. And I know that you will search the whole universe until you find me again. I know you as no one other does, and I know that you will try to flee into the world of dreams, trying to forget reality after my death. So to conclude this letter, I'll remind you of the following:

People are not weaklings in their dreams; they do not seek blind salvation. They are powerful. People in their dreams can change themselves and the future. The past and the present aren't the things that we can control, but the future is our empire and we are its capricious emperors and empresses. Dreams aren't a magical drug against the painful reality, they are a tool to make that reality better. If you use your dreams wisely, you will be destined to have a bright, painless future. The ability to dream is a power, not a shelter.

Thank you, Yukari.

See you.

  
\- Saigyouji "Yuyu" Yuyuko"


	2. Epilogue

That day, breakfast--actually, it was lunch-- at the Yakumo, was joined by Miss Saigyouji.

"Aaaah! Ran is such a good cook!", Yuyuko squealed in joy. "Youmu can learn a thing or two from Ran too!", Yuyuko added while slurping Ran's miso soup. Ran was flattered to hear such words, even if they were already getting old. Ran expressed her gratitude towards Yuyuko with "Thank you, Miss Saigyouji". Yukari was delighted to see such a cute interaction between Yuyuko and Ran, but the real reason Yukari invited Yuyuko for breakfast was not to enjoy the food but to discuss the letter they were searching so long for. "Ran, could you leave please?", Yukari said. Yuyuko understood that Yukari wanted to start the discussion already. Ran replied with "Sure, my mistress" and left. There was an awkward pause that Yukari used to construct a sentence to start the conversation, and she finally spoke:

"Were you fond of the truth that you found?", Yukari spoke with a calm voice. Yuyuko started to blush for obvious reasons and replied with a shivering voice: "Yes, I am. Now I understand your actions and attitude towards me". After another awkward pause, Yuyuko continued: "This letter also helped me understand and examine my past, present and future. I would never understand that I am in fact, the maiden you were searching for-", before she could finish her sentence, Yukari interrupted her. "Enough of this pointless chatter!", she raised her voice. "Yuyu, can you hear me? Don't you understand how awful I feel without you, Yuyu?", she tried to reach out to Yuyuko. Yuyuko was scared of Yukari's actions but used her empathy to understand all of the despair that piled up inside Yukari and stopped questioning her behaviour. All she wanted to do is to heal Yukari from the trauma that ripped her heart apart a thousand years ago. She's still Yuyu. Her feelings for Yukari she had all these years were a riddle that was finally solved with this letter. She tightly embraced Yukari and filled her ears with a sweet whisper:

"I never said goodbye, Yukari. Now, that's enough; smile."


End file.
